Painting Imagine I am to paint you now, at half past four in the morning. The jumping light from the streetlamps outside your windows discovers nothing. You're dreaming on your new bed, in the new bedroom of your extravagant new apartment, which I have heard you tell others, to be the sum of all your previous residences. If I am to paint you, the painting will be devoid of background, devoid of foreground, devoid of all detail. I do not know the shape and texture of your bed mattress. Nor the colours of the walls, the pattern on the floorboards. In this imaginary picture that I cannot paint, your chocolate body lies awkwardly on the centre of an empty white canvas and I (with a face that you barely know) curl around your waist. :::::::::: ©Tammy Ho Lai-ming